I thought the two specials were - typically for Chappelle - shaggy, idiosyncratic, and ultimately quite funny.

I was actually at the show in Santa Fe he references in the second special during which that assclown threw a banana peel at him, and given that this was very much in the period where he was notorious for walking off stage at the slightest provocation, it was pretty surprising that he continued the show and talked/riffed about it for almost forty minutes before returning to his prepared material and wrapping up the show. The incident certainly derailed the show, but the fact that he processed it in front of a crowd and still eventually brought things back on track was both generous and uber-professional in a way that was really impressive and memorable.

It was kind of two seasons (one order split in half), though it's still very refreshing to see this happen.

I feel like it's an underappreciatedly crazy fact that WB took a big risk and gave Baz Luhrmann $150 million to make a blockbuster 3D version of a work of classic "adult" literary fiction and it made a ton of money and his reward was... a TV show on Netflix.

Not surprised, Buhrmann predictably drove up the cost exponentially, even long after principal photography was finished, with his haphazard throw-everything-at-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks "filmmaking." No one should ever give that guy money - you can literally eat it and still wind up with more or less the same result.

It just seems like they're not sticking with shows that aren't very good. Girlboss did poorly with critics and didn't seem to have much of a following. I welcome Netflix finally letting the cream rise to the top and cutting shows off that don't work. However, if this whole cancellation thing backfires and the new MST3K doesn't get picked up, I'll take all that back.

P.S. GLOW is a shabby but often amusing series, but does a bit too much playing around with an really unusual concept. Marc Maron's a standout, essentially playing a much angrier Ted V. Mikels type. It's not going to be getting any notices as the best show on television, but there's a solid foundation for the future there if it gets picked up (and being from some of the creative team behind Orange is the New Black likely gives it a leg up in that department)

I liked the premise for Girlboss but the trailer wasn't funny at all and you have to figure they'd put at least some of their best material in that, so I never bothered. I didn't even realize that was the girl from Tomorrowland / the Last Ride til reading the Variety article

Teaser trailer for Wormwood, a drama series (though one scene looks like documentary) from Errol Morris about the shady history of the CIA.

It is about evenly split between dramatic recreations and a more traditional documentary style, and it is pretty incredible.

Morris takes the ominous sense of dread and foreboding that he's long been able to conjure with expert overlaying of imagery, sound, and voiceover, and cranks it up until the dial falls off. Infused with psychedelia and paranoia, he investigates the opppressive crush of a single tragedy on a son and his family, and parallels it with the slow-motion, only half-realized moral tragedy the country as a whole has been undergoing for the past 70 years.

Wormwood feels like a culmination and extension of Morris' stylistic concerns, with multitudes of split screens, repetitions, and reexaminations, all in service of a quixotic attempt to reach truths that are both unknowable and tantalizingly close. The recreations are what really separates this from his prior work, and the cinematography and imagery in these sections were stunning, second only to the amazing soundtrack as the standout technical elements of the film.

I was apprehensive about spending the first 5+ hours of Telluride on something that will be probably the most widely available of all the offerings here in a few weeks, but watching it with its creator and subject, all in one sitting, was a unique and powerful experience.

I'm definitely biased as I'm friends with the creators of this one, but I'm unbelievably proud of them and elated that this is finally being released after 5+ years of arduous work on their part. And good on Netflix for giving an avenue for shorter films like this to be widely seen.

I started rewatching Lady Dynamite and from the very first scene the first episode has been heavily cut and edited. I don't know if they did it to the whole series, but now I don't even feel like watching it to find out. The series is not available on physical media, which makes it worse.

Is this the first case, or has Netflix done this to other series as well?